Posted:October 17, 2011

Fred’s Hair is on Fire

Today’s Post is a Testimony to the Value of Vacations

My partner, Fred Giasson, today posted the second part of his series on open source. Since returning from a well-earned vacation a few weeks back — after more than three years without a break — Fred has been writing and developing up a storm. As someone said to me last week, “Fred’s on fire!” I could not agree more.

I think Fred’s post speaks for itself as to why and how Structured Dynamics has made a conscious choice to embrace open source. The major reason he puts forth — to bootstrap the company without the need for external investment — is unusual in itself. But one thing he is silent about is why this is a compelling reason. I’ll comment on that.

Fred and I have both worked for others dependent on their capital for our ventures (a few more times in my case). Capital is great for expansion and operations, but it can be deadly when visions requiring patience are in play. Structured Dynamics is only now a bit more than halfway through its five-year plan. While semantics technologies are exciting with a world of upside potential, they have also been incubated in academic labs with (as yet) a general lack of practical deployment. The promise is there, but often the delivery and maturation have been lacking. We are committed to play a visible role in correcting that.

The approach Fred outlines was not perhaps easily available to new startups a decade ago. But now, with open source and the Internet, costs of entry and ongoing development have dropped markedly. Yet, surprisingly, the idea of financing a startup via revenues is still not talked about sufficiently — let alone often used as an actual basis for building a company.

I’ve been fortunate to be able to partner with a young, world-class technologist whose maturity exceeds that of individuals many years his senior. He understands that in order to achieve important visions that the stewardship of those ideas can not be left to venture capitalists committed solely or mostly to gaming terms or near-term returns. We’re placing our bets on the paying customer and our own judgment.

So, it is great to see Fred continue his phenomenal development productivity since he returned from Hawaii. The benefit of his vacation is that we are also now getting his insights on his blog again.

My partner, Fred Giasson, today posted the second part of his series on open source. Since returning from a well-earned vacation a few weeks back -- after more than three years without a break -- Fred has been writing and developing up a storm